2010s

Appendices

Untitled [Replica Rietveld Chair] (c.1975-6?) [3/M]

Synthetic polymer paint on wood, approx. 38.5 x 60 x 80

Private collection, Melbourne

This reduced scale replica of Gerrit Rietveld’s classic red-blue chair (1918) dates from the 1970s (see Spray 72), although it was first recorded in 1980, when Melbourne artist/critic Robert Rooney photographed Arkley sitting in it, in his studio, with Proton-Neutron 50s (1979) in the background.

In 1981, Melbourne critic and theorist Paul Taylor mentioned this work in his influential ‘New Wave’ article in the inaugural issue of Art + Text, suggesting that while it was ‘initially something of a carpentry exercise, the chair was quoted as an example of Modernist optimism and faith in a new harmony of constructive art’. By contrast, argued Taylor, Arkley’s own stylized furniture, e.g. in Muzak Mural – Chair Tableau (1980-81) [3/M], reflected a more complex ‘second degree’ approach to modernist sources, combining popular culture references in a more ‘disquieting’ blend.

For Arkley’s interest in Rietveld and the De Stijl movement generally, see Carnival 30 and 131.